Diplodocoids are a group of sauropod dinosaurs that includes famous species like Diplodocus and Apatosaurus. They were previously thought to have evolved after the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea, but fossils of a previously unknown dinosaur found in China are forcing a re-think.

The early diplodocoid has been named Lingwulong shenqi, literally “amazing dragon of Lingwu”, after the town near where it was found.

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Xing Xu, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and his team found the fossils in Ningxia Autonomous Region in northwest China, and date them from about 174 million years ago. This makes it 15 million years older than the earliest members of this family known until now – and changes the story of how sauropod dinosaurs everywhere evolved.

“Previously we thought that advanced sauropods arrived in the late Jurassic and quickly became dominant on this planet, but this suggests that these dinosaurs evolved earlier and spread slower,” says Xu.

Until now, there had been a consensus that different dinosaur groups lived in different parts of the world by this time. But the presence of diplodocoids in China at this time adds to an argument that dinosaurs were more similar throughout the globe. The apparent geographic diversity might be just down to an incomplete fossil record.

Xu thinks this proves it’s important for researchers to continue investing time and effort in these digs. “My experience in China suggests that there are still lots of unexplored areas, so there’s still lots of potential. It’s been explored for half a century, but we still find new results.”